With the advent of online flight reservation, flights booking in India increased dramatically, acting like catalyst in a market dominated by the state-owned carrier, Indian Airlines (now Indian). With the repealing of the Air Corporations Act of 1953, Jet Airways showed the way, gaining scheduled airline status in January 1994. This opened the door for a new breed of domestic airlines, such as Air Sahara, Damania, and many others. Online flight reservation - with its wide-reaching connectivity, speed, as well as reliability - enabled airlines and ticketing agents to better communicate, and connected the consumer directly with the airline. This allowed airlines to correctly assess the burgeoning demand for domestic air-travel, resulting in the offering a larger number of flights across more destinations in India, for both business and leisure travellers. Ticketing-booking and management software such as Abacus, and international organisations like International Air Transport Association (IATA), further accelerated the process, providing quick, direct and reliable booking of flight tickets across an array of airlines in the world.
At present, there are over 11 major domestic airlines in India, together providing a vast network of flights across hundreds of destinations in India at economical rates. These include full service airlines such as Air India (India's national flag carrier), Indian (India’s domestic flag carrier), Jet Airways (market leader), Kingfisher Airlines (UB owned airlines), Jagson Airlines (Pioneer of Air Taxi operations), MDLR Airlines (quality regional air service) and Alliance Air (state-owned), as well as cheap airlines like Air Deccan (India’s first low-cost carrier), GoAir, IndiGo Airlines, JetLite (Jet Airways owned subsidiary), Spicejet Airlines, and Kingfisher Red (low cost subsidiary of Kingfisher Airlines).
India’s first low-cost carrier was Simplifly Deccan or Air Deccan, and is now known as Kingfisher Red. Air Deccan was formed in 2003, successfully capturing a hitherto untapped segment of the market, offering airfares that were level with railway prices. Air Deccan did all this with the vision to empower the Indian traveller, offering him the opportunity to fly at the lowest airfares to a large number of destinations across the country. Air Deccan showed the way for all low-cost carriers to come, such as the immensely successful Spicejet airlines, GoAir IndiGo Airlines, and JetLite. Air Deccan has recently been taken over by the UB Group, and in its new avatar as Kingfisher Red is based out of Bangalore International Airport, along with a secondary hub at Chennai International Airport.
Author is an associate editor of Domestic Airlines in India. The website offers exclusive information of Air India and Air India Flights. We also provide information about online flight reservation for
Flights to India.
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